Operation Brain Trauma Therapy: 2016 Update

Mil Med. 2018 Mar 1;183(suppl_1):303-312. doi: 10.1093/milmed/usx184.

Abstract

Operation brain trauma therapy (OBTT) is a multi-center, pre-clinical drug and biomarker screening consortium for traumatic brain injury (TBI). Therapies are screened across three rat models (parasagittal fluid percussion injury, controlled cortical impact [CCI], and penetrating ballistic-like brain injury). Operation brain trauma therapy seeks to define therapies that show efficacy across models that should have the best chance in randomized clinical trials (RCTs) and/or to define model-dependent therapeutic effects, including TBI protein biomarker responses, to guide precision medicine-based clinical trials in targeted pathologies. The results of the first five therapies tested by OBTT (nicotinamide, erythropoietin, cyclosporine [CsA], simvastatin, and levetiracetam) were published in the Journal of Neurotrauma. Operation brain trauma therapy now describes preliminary results on four additional therapies (glibenclamide, kollidon-VA64, AER-271, and amantadine). To date, levetiracetam was beneficial on cognitive outcome, histology, and/or biomarkers in two models. The second most successful drug, glibenclamide, improved motor function and histology in CCI. Other therapies showed model-dependent effects (amantadine and CsA). Critically, glial fibrillary acidic protein levels predicted treatment effects. Operation brain trauma therapy suggests that levetiracetam merits additional pre-clinical and clinical evaluation and that glibenclamide and amantadine merit testing in specific TBI phenotypes. Operation brain trauma therapy has established that rigorous, multi-center consortia could revolutionize TBI therapy and biomarker development.

Publication types

  • Multicenter Study
  • Research Support, U.S. Gov't, Non-P.H.S.

MeSH terms

  • Animals
  • Biomarkers / blood
  • Brain Injuries, Traumatic / drug therapy*
  • Cognition / drug effects
  • Disease Models, Animal
  • Enzyme-Linked Immunosorbent Assay / methods
  • Glial Fibrillary Acidic Protein / analysis
  • Glial Fibrillary Acidic Protein / blood
  • Mass Screening / methods*
  • Mass Screening / trends
  • Rats
  • Rats, Sprague-Dawley / injuries
  • Recovery of Function / drug effects
  • Ubiquitin Thiolesterase / analysis
  • Ubiquitin Thiolesterase / blood

Substances

  • Biomarkers
  • GFAP protein, human
  • Glial Fibrillary Acidic Protein
  • UCHL1 protein, human
  • Ubiquitin Thiolesterase